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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Sermon 03212012 Wednesday of Lent 4

May the
words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight,
O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.AMEN.

Let us
pray, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the lamb is silent before its shearers, You
suffered the entirety of our sins silently without utterance.You modeled for us the true nature of a
suffering servant, innocent and enduring for the atonement of our sins for all
of us gathered here at Emmanuel this evening.AMEN.

King
Solomon, great Old Testament character and author offered the world and the
church some great gems of wisdom in the book of Ecclesiastes.Some of these gems have been used for
funerals, times of triumph and times of tragedy about human life and how
sometimes we quote ourselves, “vanity of vanities, all is vanity” when we have
been disillusioned about our experiences in life.One set of statements included in
Ecclesiastes concerns God’s plan for the world, but how God’s plan is not fully
revealed to us.Solomon wrote the ‘time
statements’, one of the most appropriate for us to consider tonight.It reads, “A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Ecc. 3:7).This simple statement reveals to us what the
Character of Jesus Christ our suffering servant was as He endured from His
capture to the brutal end on the Cross of Calvary.

Hear
our text for this evening from Isaiah who writes:

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet
He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to
slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He
did not open His mouth.

Jesus Christ was silent throughout His trial and
did not open His mouth.Jesus Christ
could have easily turned the words of His accusers and refuted their claims,
but “He did not open His mouth”.Jesus
Christ was quiet and did not utter a single word to refute, but endured the
pain of the wounds, the torture of the soldiers, the hurled insults of the
crowd, the ridicule of the masses.Jesus
Christ endured our sins, what we deserved to be crucified on the Cross for,
because of His great love for you and for me.

Jesus Christ is the innocent lamb.“Like a lamb that is led to slaughter”, Jesus
Christ fulfilled the acclamation of John the Baptist who called Him the “Lamb
of God who takes away the sins of the world.”Jesus Christ chose to feel the lashes of the whips, the nails being
driven through His hands and feet and the mocking of the people in order to
model for each of us what Solomon said, “a time to keep silence”, for this was
His calling, His divine purpose and His love made manifest on the Cross of
Calvary for you and for me.

For in Jesus Christ fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy
of being afflicted for our sins, not opening His mouth, being led like a lamb led
to the slaughter and not opening His mouth, Jesus Christ atones for our sins
and the sins of the entire world.Perfect Man Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, both God and Man
endured and atoned for the entire world.In Confirmation we talk about this word, “Atonement”, we break it apart
and understand it to mean, Jesus Christ through His silent suffering makes us
“At – ONE – Ment” with God the Father.Jesus Christ reconciled us with the Father and through our baptism into
Jesus Christ life and death; we are also grafted into His resurrection.Death no longer has dominion over us and
Satan no longer has dominion over us.We
have been set free as Children of our Heavenly Father, redeemed by the blood of
Jesus Christ.

Hence, Jesus Christ Who was silent as our lamb, was
marred, despised and forsaken, bore our griefs and cares and was afflicted in
order to quiet the Kings who asked the question, ‘Who has believed’, even
endured scourging, bruising piercing having our iniquity and sin fall upon Him
on the cross in order to offer to all of us gathered here at Emmanuel today
eternal life.For Jesus did not come to condemn
the world, but in silence saved the world through His death on the Cross of
Calvary for the entire world, including all of us saints gathered here at
Emmanuel this morning.AMEN.